Philoxenus Of Mabbug, , (born c. 440, Tahal, Beth-Garmaï [near modern Kirkūk, Iraq]—died c. 523, Gangra, Paphlagonia [near modern Samsun, Turkey]) Syrian bishop, theologian, and classical author. He was a leader of the Jacobite Monophysite church, a heterodox group that taught the existence of a single subject in Christ, the Logos, and followed the theology of Cyril of Alexandria (c. 375–444). He also contributed significantly to the Syriac literary heritage, particularly with the Philoxenian New Testament based on the original Greek text.

A student at the school of Edessa, now Urfa, Tur., Philoxenus rejected the Nestorian doctrine of Christ that posited in him an autonomous human nature conjoined to the divinity simply by a moral bond. Instead, Philoxenus emphasized the dynamichegemony of Christ’s divinity over his humanity. Because of his zeal in expounding the Monophysite cause, he was expelled from Edessa by the Orthodox patriarch of Antioch. But with the support of Peter the Fuller, Monophysite patriarch of Antioch, Philoxenus was named bishop of Hierapolis (Mabbug), near modern Aleppo, Syria, in 485.

Investigated by Flavian II, orthodox successor to Peter the Fuller, Philoxenus was condemned as a heretic by Macedonius, patriarch of Constantinople. Supported, however, by the new emperor, Anastasius I, Philoxenus undertook a campaign to replace Orthodox bishops with Monophysite churchmen. At the accession of the Orthodox emperor Justin I in 518, Philoxenus was exiled to Philippopolis, now Plovdiv, Bulg., where he continued his polemical and ascetical writings during the rigours of captivity. It is possible he died violently.

Philoxenus collaborated in a Syriac version of the New Testament in about 508 with Polycarp of Hierapolis, his chorepiscopus (“auxiliary bishop”). Together with the celebrated Peshitta, an early Syriac Bible text, the Philoxenian New Testament, as it is called, served as the principal scriptural source for Syriac Christianity for two centuries. The Discourses of Philoxenus, 2 vol. (1894), a collection of 13 of Philoxenus’ addresses on the Christian life, were edited and translated by Sir Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge.

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A revision of the Syriac translation was made in the early 6th century by Philoxenos, bishop of Mabbug, based on the Lucianic recension of the Septuagint. Another (the Syro-Hexaplaric version) was made by Bishop Paul of Tella in 617 from the Hexaplaric text of the Septuagint. A Palestinian Syriac version, extant in fragments, is known to go back to at least 700, and a fresh recension was made...

During the 1st century bc, by which time Rome was beginning to be the chief centre of Greek scholarship, Philoxenus wrote on Greek dialects, among which he included Latin; he was the first scholar to be aware of the existence of monosyllabic roots. Under Augustus, Tryphon studied the language of prose and made the first study of syntax, the first vocabulary of the written language, and a...

...and became the principal seat of Nestorian culture. At one time it had as many as 800 students and was able to ensure that the then prosperous church in Persia was Nestorian. On the other hand, Philoxenus of Mabbug, who had studied at Edessa in the second half of the 5th century and was one of the most learned of Syrian theologians, was a vehement advocate of Monophysitism. His 13 homilies...